Thulium atoms are trapped in a magneto-optical trap using a strong transition
at 410 nm with a small branching ratio. We trap up to 7×104 atoms at
a temperature of 0.8(2) mK after deceleration in a 40 cm long Zeeman slower.
Optical leaks from the cooling cycle influence the lifetime of atoms in the MOT
which varies between 0.3 -1.5 s in our experiments. The lower limit for the
leaking rate from the upper cooling level is measured to be 22(6) s−1. The
repumping laser transferring the atomic population out of the F=3 hyperfine
ground-state sublevel gives a 30% increase for the lifetime and the number of
atoms in the trap.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure